


Shields

by comehomelove



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 10:25:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10683381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comehomelove/pseuds/comehomelove
Summary: Shameless angst/smut/Kanera feelings. My first fic! Set just after Zero Hour, as the Ghost travels to Yavin. Hera deals with the aftermath of Thrawn's attack on Atollon and Kanan comes to comfort her-- even though they have been trying to stay apart.  But if they’re going to die (and they are. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but this rebellion is going to be the end of them. That’s what they signed up for) she wants this memory fresh in her mind: the feeling of Kanan’s mouth and hands on her...





	Shields

Hera can’t sleep.

It’s not that she’s not tired. She’s exhausted. But every time she closes her eyes she’s back on Atollon, fiery green blades of the orbital strike raining down. Any second could have been their last, every individual blast a question: will the shield hold?

It did. Thank you, Sabine. Though--how much longer would it have? Hera can’t quiet the nagging voice in the back of her mind: that they survived only because Thrawn had wanted to take them alive, probably under orders from Imperial Command--either that, or he wanted to kill them himself. It is not a relief.

Y-wings blasted out of the sky, her fellow pilots’ screams-- proof that their last seconds were ones of infernal, soul-shattering fear. The fiery nebula of the command ship ripping the Interdictor in half, Sato standing proud at the helm. The base, everything they’d built, burning on the surface.

It could have been any of them.

This is what she doesn’t let herself think in the moment, in any of the moments. It’s why she never says goodbye to them when they left on their missions. Could she let Ezra fly a ship into the blockade on only the chance that they’d be able to get him through it? Let Sabine go on run after run that would be a suicide mission for anyone else? If Hera stops to think about it-- but the only way to make it from one day to the next, the only way to get through each second of this rebellion, is to operate under the assumption that of course they’d all be back safely. That they’d end that night safe on the Ghost.

It’s a lie. Her crew is good. But they’re also lucky. And their luck won’t hold forever. That’s not how luck works.

_Kanan! Kanan?_

Even Jedi aren’t invincible.

_I’m getting the feeling Thrawn’s actually trying to kill us this time!_

_Oh, that’s only funny because you’re still alive._

He wouldn’t always be. Next time could be the last time. For any of them.

_Now please, come home, love!_

That didn’t get past Dodanna. He glanced at her. Didn’t say anything, but heard.

Sabine’s shield held. But Thrawn got past Hera’s. The fear seeped in.  
Hera sits up in her narrow bed and shakes her head in the darkness like she can erase the image of Kanan’s body mangled in the dirt it’s managed to conjure up. The room is dim and quiet. There’s only the low hum of the Ghost to reassure her.

She shivers, cold in her thin black tank and shorts. It’s not a question of if, the voice in the back of her head taunts her softly. It’s a question of when.

The tears come in a shudder. She puts her face in her hands.

Hera’s always known there’s a good chance she won’t make it to the other side of this war. She knows Kanan might not. Ezra, Sabine, Zeb--any of them them would be lucky to make it. And they know that. Hera’s not just willing to die for the rebellion. She’s planning on it. She isn’t afraid of death.

But this uncertainty! Knowing it could be any moment just as easily as it could be none. It’s almost unbearable. The intensity of every second that passed before Kanan answered her page after the orbital strike. She didn’t know it would hurt this much, a wound that deepens with every single close call, an overwhelming, dizzying pain. When is it going to happen? When is their luck going to run out?

A knock.

Hera wipes her eyes hastily. “Come in!”

The door slides open. Main lights are out for power conservation as they all take a cycle rest during the trip towards Yavin, so she can’t see much-- but in the low glare of emergency lamps she can make out Kanan in the doorway, his scarred face tense with concern.

“Kanan. What is it? Is everything okay?” She can hear hyperspace humming through the ship, but the sense of calm, of safety, that she usually associates with deep space feels fragile.

“You tell me,” he says, voice low.

Relief-- and embarrassment. Of course. One of the side effects of travelling with a Jedi is that her feelings are often not as private as she’d like.

I’ve gotten so used to you, Kanan told her once. It was after he’d felt her distress when a run went bad, back in the first years they knew each other. I notice when there’s a shift in how you usually feel in the Force. I can just feel it. It’s like-- there’s a comm channel open between us, and usually it’s just background noise. Then suddenly I heard something unusual. And I knew you were in trouble.

She didn’t like that. I don’t need you keeping tabs on me.

I’m not! I’m not. It’s not on purpose. It’s just we spend so much time--it’s a proximity thing. You get scared or angry and it’s like...it’s like the temperature in the room drops all of a sudden. I can’t not notice it.

That stab in her heart when she couldn’t stop thinking about him, dead--that’s what he must have felt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“Don’t apologize.” He is still in the doorway. “I’m not trying to intrude.”

“You’re not.” Hera swings her legs over the edge of her bunk and studies him from across the room. His arms are crossed low across his stomach and she can just make out in the darkness that his feet are bare, his hair loose around his shoulders.

The truth is, the simple fact of his presence has already made her feel calmer. He tilts his head like he can feel her eyes on his face. He knows without her saying anything how relieved she is to see him.

But she isn’t supposed to feel that way. Shouldn’t feel that way. Can’t.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing. A bad dream.”

He steps into the cabin and the door slides shut behind him.

Hera sighs. “Kanan, really. Go back to sleep.”

“We can talk about it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“It was a hard day. We took a blow. There’s no shame in fear.”

That irks her and she pushes off on her knees to stand up and face him. He hears, and moves towards her, but she holds out a hand and he runs into it, stopping an arm’s length away.

“I don’t need a lecture about fear from you,” she snaps. “You don’t even love because you’re so afraid of it--turning on you.”

The strength of her voice surprises her. It surprises Kanan, too--he steps backwards into the wall.

“That’s not fair, Hera. You know that’s not true. That’s not how it works,” he says. “You know I--you know I love--”

The truncated sentence hangs between them. For a second, Hera thought he might finish it.  
But he doesn’t. She swallows. “You almost died today,” she says forcefully. It’s an accusation.

“Well, yeah.We all did. We all do. Most days, in fact. More often than not.”

“Stop it. You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Joke! Make it into a joke! Yes, they are actually trying to kill us. It’s not funny, Kanan.”

“I know it’s not, Hera,” he answers her steadily.

She realizes suddenly that they are standing chest to chest. Her arm has dropped and the distance between them closed as she raged at him.

She can see now that he’s wearing the short-sleeved shirt and loose pants he sleeps in. It’s odd to see him in something other than his standard wear, armoured and belted, hair tied back. He’s been so stern recently, so tense. He’s become a much more serious man than he was when she first met him.

That started when they found Ezra. It had been six years since Kanan joined her crew. Five since she kissed him for the first time. Four since she had realized he had become her partner, that she could trust him in everything.

Ezra and Zeb and Sabine were asleep and Hera and Kanan lay face to face in her bunk.

_The Force is strong with him, Hera._

_I know._

_I don’t know if I can do it._

_What do you mean?_

_I don’t know if I can be the teacher he needs._

_Kanan, of course you can. You’re exactly the teacher he needs._ She didn’t know much about the Jedi but she knew enough to tell him: you found each other for a reason. _The Force knew what it was doing when it brought you together._

He put his head into the space between her shoulder and her neck and was quiet. She could feel him breathing.

_I didn’t expect--I never thought--I thought that part of my life was done. I want to teach him. I do. But I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I know how._

_I know you can, Kanan. I know you can. I have faith in you, love._

Hera remembers that night, how she stroked his hair, waiting with him as he gathered his resolve. He lay silent, pressed against her, for a long time. But then he placed a kiss to the hollow where he’d laid his head. A second kiss, on her neck. Her cheek.

_What are you doing?_

_Shhh._ Mouth found mouth. But there was something urgent in his kiss.

_Kanan._

_Hera._ He shifted so he was on top of her. _Let me._ One hand grasped a lek, stroking with a grip just firm enough. The other running down her hip, over her thigh, between her legs. She shut her eyes and let his familiar touch carry her away.

Afterwards, forehead to forehead, chest to chest the way they’re standing now, his deep voice, soft in her ear: _you make me feel like I can do anything._

For some reason he sounded sad when he said it.

_Well, a captain has to be an inspiration to her crew, _Hera said slyly, trying to get him to smile.__

___I love you so much,_ __ he said, tightening his grip.

She didn’t realize then it was an apology.

It’s been a long time since Kanan came to her room in the dark. Not since he had been taken prisoner by the Grand Inquisitor. He came home to her but then Ashoka had come, and the rebellion had truly begun, and everything changed.

___I have to be the best I can be. I have to be a Jedi. For Ezra._ _ _

___Okay. So. What does that mean?_ _ _

___I have to let go. I have to focus. I can’t be-- attached. It’s going to be hard as hell and I wish there was another way--but I can’t-- we can’t--_ _ _

___Okay._ __ Hera had immediately become practical. _ __So, no sex. No relationship.__ _

___I’m sorry._ _ _

___Don’t be sorry. No attachments. That’s that then. We stop._ _ _

___It’s not what I want. You get that, right? If I could go on not being Jedi, I would. But I have to._ _ _

___Kanan. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. You have to focus on training Ezra. And I have a job to do with the rebellion. So we’ll stop._ _ _

They stopped.

She understood. There were other things that had to come first. That was just how it went. It was a war, after all.

Now, Hera can feel the warmth of his skin radiating towards her and she is aching for him. They are almost close enough to touch and the fact that she can’t step forward into his arms makes her feel cold. She takes a step back, trying to steady herself. “You didn’t have to come in here.”

“I heard you, over the comm,” he says softly.

Come home, love.

Hera doesn’t have to be a Jedi to see why attachments are dangerous. She hadn’t been an officer in that moment. It was too much: Kanan, putting his hand on his shoulder when he told her he was going to the desert, like he was saying goodbye. Realizing he was out there, alone, without shelter from laser blasts. She forgot she had decided to play a role. They both had. There’s no shame in fear, Kanan told her a minute ago, but that’s exactly what she feels. Ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Hera.”

“I know why we’re doing this. I know we can’t--”

“Hera.”

“It’s not your job to take care of me,” Hera goes on. “I can take care of myself. You didn’t have to come in here and--”

“I didn’t come in here because I thought you needed me to take care of you,” he interrupts her.

Hera’s heart is pounding painfully hard, like it’s going to burst out of her chest.

“You thought I was going to die? I thought I was going to die,” Kanan says. “I got blown off that speeder and I heard cannonfire striking everything around me and I thought, well, this is it for me. I’m not worried about Ezra. I’ve given him everything I can give him. If I died he would be in a better place than I was when I lost my master. But I couldn’t stop thinking--I couldn’t stop picturing--I couldn’t stand the idea that--”

“Kanan, please.” Hera says. She can’t listen to this and then watch him walk out the door and go back to his own cabin. “Don’t. We can’t. You know we can’t.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says in a low voice. “I can’t deny this. If it was just me that would be one thing but every day I can feel you, and your feelings are a mirror image of my own. Being so close to you, knowing what you want, wanting the same thing, knowing that it would be so easy, that we could just be together--it’s not fair. You know how I feel. You know that I--”

She doesn’t know how it happens, but something snaps between them.

They shoot towards like they’ve been fired out of blasters. Hera is in Kanan’s arms, drinking him in like she’s dying of thirst. Kanan couldn’t finish his sentence but makes a sound of relief, and his hands fly to the base of her lekku, gripping just firmly enough, stroking up and down their length so the tips curl up in pleasure. His hands are so sure, so firm, that it feels like he’s been waiting for month and months to touch her exactly like that, and Hera wraps her arms around his neck to deepen the kiss, sinking into the feeling. His mouth is soft and familiar and she feels an intense relief, her defenses crumbling away like a wave that has broken on the shore. It’s been so long. If they’re going to die (and they are. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but this rebellion is going to be the end of them. That’s what they signed up for) she wants this memory fresh in her mind: the feeling of Kanan’s mouth and hands on her.

They break the kiss to breathe, both of them panting a little. Kanan moves his mouth to her neck, his beard scraping her roughly. But it’s not enough. She presses into him. “I thought I was going to lose you,” she whispers. “I thought--”

“Hey. Hey,” he says into her neck. “Don’t worry about me. I’m hard to get rid of,” and then bites her neck.

“Shut up,” she gasps, feeling for the bottom of his shirt, slides her hands up his chest to twist her fingers in the hair there. “Please, Kanan, don’t joke. Don’t talk. Just shut up.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then he is kissing her again. His tongue pushes through her lips and one of his hands finds one of her breasts while the other keeps stroking her lek, fingering the tip.

Hera’s stomach sinks into her knees. She groans into his mouth and pushes him backwards into the chair opposite her bed. It’s flimsy metal and scrapes and screeches on the grated floor as Kanan hits the backs of his knees on the seat so that he has to sit down, hard. Growling, he pulls Hera into his lap so she is straddling him and runs his hand up and down her back, her hips, up around to her shoulders, up and down her lekku, to her cheeks . Hera presses her forehead to his and his hands slide around down her neck and shoulders and then around to her breasts. She can feel him hot and hard through his lightweight pants, pressing into her urgently. She feels dizzy with how much she wants him. She is breathing hard, now, and so is he  
.  
She forgot what it feels like to have Kanan strip away her shirt, roll her nipples between his fingers. She forgot what it feels like to have him take the tip of her lek in his mouth and suck. Her head arches back and she grinds her hips down against his erection and then reaches down to pull the waist of his pants down and grip him tight in her fist. She strokes him up and down, feeling his cock pulse and swell under her fingers.

“Hera.”

She kisses his neck, his cheeks, his forehead. He pulls at her skintight shorts like he hates anything that’s between them, and she stops stroking him to stand and wriggle out of it, first one leg and then the other. Then, naked, she takes him by the hands.

“Come here,” she whispers.

He lets her pull him up and guide him over to the bed, stepping out of his pants on the way. Hera pushes his shirt up and over his head and presses their chests together, pulling his mouth down to hers. She can’t stop kissing him. It’s like if she lets go for even a minute he’ll be gone, and that’s something she can’t risk.

Kanan pushes her backwards and she sits down on the bed, pulls him down with her. They twist so Hera is on her back with Kanan is above her, his knees on either side of her hips, his penis nudging between her legs, begging for entry. His mouth is on her breast again and one hand is rhythmic on a lek. Both the tails are hanging down over her shoulders, heavy and damp with sweat and desire. Kanan kisses her rib cage, her stomach, slides his hands down over her hips as his mouth trails towards her thighs. With his fingers he parts the two smaller lekku that frame her opening. His tongue flicks over her and it’s like a bolt of lightning courses through her. He licks up and down, torturously slow, and Hera grits her teeth, shuts her eyes. But then she opens them again. She wants to see him. She wants to remember. She cranes her neck to look down and take in the sight of Kanan Jarrus with his head between her thighs, his hair falling around his face. As though he can feel her eyes on him, Kanan raises his head and smiles. Then he slides a slick finger deep into her before lowering his mouth again.

Hera moans and falls back on the pillow. It’s been so long since she was touched like this and it is overwhelming, it’s too much, it hurts, almost, how much she wanted him.

She presses up with her hips, arching into him, ready to come. But Kanan pulls away and nuzzles his way back up to her mouth for a kiss.

“I missed doing that,” he murmurs. “I missed how you taste.”

Hera runs her hands up and down his back, feeling his muscles under her fingertips.  
“I want to feel you,” he says. “I want to--”

“Fuck me,” she whispers in his ear as he bites down hard on her shoulder. “I want you to fuck me, Kanan, I want you inside me--”

Kanan’s hands go on the top of her head at the base of her lekku, stroking her in the sensitive creases there with his thumbs. He touches his forehead to hers. Hera reaches down between them to guide him and he presses in with his hips, his cock sliding into her tight wetness.

They both gasp. Kanan’s face screws up in something that looks like pain, but then he manages to say, “I missed you so fucking much,” and she says, “please, please stop talking--” because she doesn’t want to think about the hours and hours they spent on the same ship, resisting this, because how did she resist this? Kanan is fucking her exactly how she wants him to, rhythmic and controlled, one hand between them so he can touch her. Hera wraps her legs around his waist and pushes her hips up as he pushes in, coaxing him deeper. She wants him as deep as he can go, wants him to press all the way into her so she never has to let him go. He makes a sound she had forgotten he could make and that combined with whatever he’s doing with his hand between her legs is too much, she can feel too much, and as her orgasm shudders through her, wave after wave, she buries her face his neck. She is spinning, spinning, wild and out of control and all she can do is cling to him. “Kanan, Kanan, Kanan--”

He comes while she’s still reeling, pleasure a low sound in the back of his throat. She loves how he buries his face in her neck. She loves how he moves against her. She loves how this moment feels, like it’s going to last forever, like they never have to go back.

Afterwards, they readjust in the bed so they are nestled close. Kanan takes her face in his hands, his thumbs on either side of her nose, and holds her away from him like he’s looking at her.

They haven’t been together like this since Maul blinded him. She had held him then, for a minute, but not long enough. Now she does what she couldn’t do then: runs her fingers gently over his eyes. He holds his head still, tense, as she touches him there, feeling the roughness of the scar tissue. Green eyes--he’d had the greenest eyes. She’ll never see them again. How did she not realize sooner? She’s already lost pieces of him.

She holds her breath as Kanan slowly he traces up and over her eyelids, nudging them down and shut. He runs the pads of his thumbs over her eyebrows and down over to the mounds on either side of her head, and back down to pass over her lips.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.

She echoes his motions with her own finger on his face, feeling the nooks and creases of his skin, the bones of his cheeks and brow, the rough hair of his beard.

“Are you used to it?”

Kanan doesn’t have to ask to know what she’s talking about. “I miss color.” He plants a kiss on her shoulder. “Your gorgeous skin.”

She can’t stand hearing him say things like that. It hurts too much. “You remember. It hasn’t changed.”

“I remember.” He’s quiet. Then: “Actually, there are some things I see better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Feelings. Thoughts. They’re so loud, now, so obvious. Like tonight. I could hear you loud and clear, all the way in my cabin, thinking about--”

Hera draws back sharply.

You will watch your friends perish, Thrawn had said. One by one...starting with the Jedi.

How did he know? After all their precautions, after they packed away their feelings so deep that she had started to wonder if Kanan even-- but now she’s lying naked in bed with him but all she can see is his dead body in the sand, his body blasted apart.

No, no, no. She can’t, she can’t. Her own death would be one thing, but she really doesn’t think she would survive Kanan’s. The warmth between them goes cold.

“Don’t,” Kanan whispers. “Don’t think that way.”

“Don’t read my mind,” she says, even though she knows that’s not, technically, what he’s doing.

“I can feel when you go towards the Dark,” he says softly. “It’s okay to be afraid. What’s dangerous is trying to tamp it down. Don’t go there. Stay here with me, Hera.” Kanan reaches over and strokes her cheek.

She wants to give into it. But the gentle touch just fills her with more dread.

Her comm buzzes.

“What is it, Chopper?”

Kanan noses her cheek while they listen to the droid’s response. She can feel his breath hot on her skin.

“We’re getting close Yavin,” Hera says. Kanan stays quiet.

“Thank you,” she says, trying again to imply that he should get up. “For coming to make sure I was alright.”

Kanan noses her cheek, but doesn’t move other than that. He can stay so still. Training, she supposes. There’s something knowing about his silence.

“I should get dressed-- and start preparing to come out of hyperspace.” Hera sits up, forcing Kanan to let go of her. He lays on his back as Hera looks for her clothes.

“I knew you would do this,” he says dully, to the ceiling.

She steps into her jumpsuit. She wishes he would stop talking. There’s no way to win. Being with him isn’t better than not being with him. In fact, it might be worse. Her body already craves him again, is already yearning for him to hold her tighter.

“Don’t tell me--you’re you about to say, ‘this was a mistake,’ right?”

“Well.” Hera pulls on her flight cap, fastens the flaps over the sides of her head.

“You seemed to be okay with it ten minutes ago.”

Her boots are beside the chair where moments ago she was straddling him. It feels like it’s been years.

“I wasn’t thinking. We weren’t thinking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the Jedi,” she snaps at him, sitting down to lace up her boots. might have changed his mind but he had been right when he said they shouldn’t get attached. The old Order had one thing right. Loving someone so much can only lead to heartbreak.

Chopper comes over the comm again, whining at her to hurry up.

“I have to go,” she says. She is fully dressed now, the crazed creature who pulled Kanan into bed with her buttoned away--even though she can still feel him dripping down her thighs, is still trembling from the feel of his hands on her lekku. Standing in front of her door she takes a deep breath. She doesn’t turn to look at him. She might not be able to walk away if she did.

“You should get dressed, too,” she says. “I’ll see you out there.”

Hera leaves Kanan there as she heads out into the corridor that leads to the cockpit. Face forward, one foot in front of the other, for as long as it takes. That’s who she is. Outside, Yavin is waiting, and it’s time to get back to the war. It’s time to put her shields back up.


End file.
